


calm in my wake

by dotdotmoon



Series: mermay [2]
Category: EXO (Band), Z.Tao (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Established Relationship, Ghosts, M/M, MerMay, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 12:03:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19745380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotdotmoon/pseuds/dotdotmoon
Summary: Jongin gets bitten on the way home.





	calm in my wake

**Author's Note:**

> for this emoji mermay prompt i received:  
> taokai 👻🧜♂️🥶🤫🥳
> 
> 🎶 the fic title is a line fragment borrowed from exo-m's 'black pearl'
> 
> extended content notes:  
> \- one mention of a past injury  
> \- references to animal cruelty. it's off-screen though and in the past  
> \- also majorly ooc zitao, i'm sorry

Zitao didn't tell Jongin 'I told you so'—he would never but also simply hadn't anticipated this happening—as he pulled him further away from the river mouth they'd swum down and closer to the shore, into one of the calm spots the sun reached, where it warmed shallow water and sand below alike.  
Jongin let himself be tugged along, more limp than pliant. The stream of small noises of complaint coming from him was reassuring; Jongin went frighteningly quiet when he was in bad pain, like the time they'd found him with a torn tailfin.  
Zitao gripped onto a root peeking out of the ground, his other hand firm around Jongin's wrist, careful not to touch the bite wound on his hand, and kept them floating in the spot with lazy flaps of his tailfin. The warmth felt strange here, stale somehow, but the closest hot spring was too far away.

"Is this how ghost bites go down? I'm still so cold," Jongin managed to whine through chattering teeth.

Zitao wasn't sure either, couldn't do much since Jongin refused to let anyone else look at it. He shushed him as he hugged him closer with one arm, inspected the wound again. It was barely there, looked more like skin that momentarily paled under pressure and would go back to normal as soon as it let up. Jongin was still shivering violently in his hold, although Zitao couldn't feel a difference in his warmth where they made contact. He turned them over and pressed him into the summer sun-warm sand, covering as much of his body with his own as he could. The tips of their tails entwined by force of habit and Jongin's free arm came up to weakly wrap around his waist.

"Better?" he asked after a while.

Jongin shook his head, then nodded. At least he wasn't shaking as much anymore, just trembling slightly. His braid had come partially undone, dark hair framing his face like the most tender jellyfish tentacles.

Zitao let his hand go, wiggled his other arm out of Jongin's embrace and cupped his face, stroked his cheeks with his thumbs and kissed him, softly. "Should I get a healer?" he asked.

Jongin looked away. He was embarrassed, Zitao realised. He'd be even more embarrassed if word of this spread in their pod—although Zitao highly suspected everyone had slowly come to anticipate the stories of Jongin's utterly bad luck and they'd be passed down to merlings for generations. At least he'd overheard Junmyeon trying to tell some to a small but fascinated gathering of merlings who solidly refused to believe any of them.

"I'm sorry I touched it, I shouldn't have," Jongin finally said, gaze trained on the surface. "It's just... they were the cutest things I've ever seen."

"Cuter than seal pups?" Zitao asked.

"They were so small," Jongin whispered. "I don't think they're supposed to be this small."

Zitao said nothing, just leaned down to press a kiss to his cheek. He'd seen dogs, playing and swimming in the lake he'd grown up in, had seen litters of ghost puppies before, learned how they came to be. There were some things he'd never tell Jongin, the details of human cruelty Jongin hadn't experienced himself among them.

"You know," he said, "one of my great-grandparents used to tell me I'll have forgotten all pain once I was a great-grandparent myself."

Jongin smiled a little at that. "Looking forward to being in pain for the rest of my life then."

**Author's Note:**

> i reject the concept of time, it can be mermay for as long as anyone still wants it to be!!
> 
> ty for reading ☀️  
> please let me know if it made you feel anything
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/fakeclover) | [cc](http://curiouscat.me/fakeclover)


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